This year is the 5th anniversary of Anime Festival Asia, and the annual event has been so well-received that it has spawned satellite events in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The anisong concert has always been one of the key highlights of AFA, and this year theme is I Love Anisong Concerts: “Electric Groove”. The first list of performing artistes were just unveiled this afternoon AFA Press Briefing and this is definitely one series of concert you wouldn’t want to miss!
The first six groups of performers include FLOW, T.M. Revolution, Sphere (スフィア), Sea☆A, May’n, and fripside. I would say that this is a good mix of different genre of music and definitely something that would appeal to everyone.
T.M. Revolution
Nishikawa Takanori (西川 貴教) is a charismatic performer and he performs as T.M.Revolution (TMR), which stands for Takanori Makes Revolution(貴教が革命を起こす). He has performed many awesome anisongs including “Naked arms/SWORD SUMMIT” for Sengoku BASARA, “Heart of Sword” for Rurouni Kenshin and a total of six songs to the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED franchise. Nishikawa has been featured on a few television programmes.
T.M. Revolution also has a huge follower of fans on twitter, and he regularly connects with his overseas fans by tweeting in English.
Sphere (スフィア)
They are probably the hottest idol seiyuu group in Japan, and its probably every anime fan’s dream to be able to meet them in person. The group consists of 4 members – Tomatsu Haruka, Kotobuki Minako, Takagaki Ayahi and Toyosaki Aki. As all four are voice actresses, their music is frequently featured as tie-ins to a variety of anime series, including Hatsukoi Limited, Sora no Manimani, and Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maō.
Sphere was formed in 2009 with their first single “Future Stream”, and they soon grown to become the fastest seiyuu group to ever perform at Nippon Budoukan. A key highlight of their concert has been the interactive comedy and conversations that never fails to engage fans.
fripSide
fripSide is a trance and pop duo that is comprises of composer Sat and seiyuu/singer Nanjou Yoshino. The duo had debuted under “fripside: THE NEXT PROJECT” in 2009.
Their innovative use of synthesizers and catchy melodies have seen their first single “Only My Railgun” (OP them song for ”To Aru Kagaku no Railgun”) debut on third spot on Oricon weekly sales chart.
Apart from performing anisongs for To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, the duo also sung “Heaven is a Place on Earth” which was featured as theme song for “Hayate no Gotoku: The Movie”.
FLOW
Anisong fans would be familiar with this great band that had sung many awesome theme songs for popular anime series, including “Colors” (OP for Code Geass), and “GO!!” and “RE:member” (Naruto). The band had performed at AFA 2011 and AFA Malaysia, and you can be sure to be impressed with their energetic and rocking performance.
May’n
Fans who had attended AFA would be familiar with this anisong diva whom has performed in Singapore many times. Since 2008, she has participated in every the annual Anime Festival Asia in Singapore and Animelo Summer Live in Japan.
She is well-known for being the singing voice as Sheryl Nome in Macross Frontier, and she has since performed many popular anisongs, including Diamond Crevasse / Iteza☆Gogo Kuji Don’t be late (Macross Frontier), Scarlet Ballet (Aria the Scarlet Ammo) and more recently Chase the world (Accel World).
Sea☆A
Sea☆A is SouthEast Asia’s homegrown anisong idols and members Winnie, Beryl, Valerie and Estelle were formly from AFA’s Moe Moe Kyun maid cafe. All their three single releases have been features as theme songs in anime series, including “Dream Shooter” (3rd OP for Card Fight!! Vanguard), “DELI-DELI☆DELICIOUS” (ED for Toriko), and “Friendship Birthday” (OP for Arashi no Yoru ni -Himitsu no Tomodachi-)..
The name Sea☆A is made of three parts. SEA is short for South-East Asia, as all four members who come from South-East Asia. The star represents the stars that they hope to be. And finally, A is for their passion for Japanese anime and the wish to spread their songs throughout Asia with their activities.
